Читать книгу John and Betty's History Visit - Margaret Williamson - Страница 12

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In Charing Cross Station one morning, Mrs. Pitt hurried up to the “booking-office,” as the English call the ticket-office, to “book” five tickets to Penshurst. While the man was getting her change, she turned and said to Philip:—

“Please ask that guard who is standing there, on which platform we shall find the 9.40 train for Penshurst.”

Philip did so, and returned with the information that they should go to Platform 8. So they all mounted the steps and walked over the foot-bridge which always runs across and above all the tracks, in an English station. There was a bench on the platform, and they sat down to await the arrival of the train. About 9.35, five minutes before the train was to start, John happened to see a train official sauntering by, and asked him if it was correct that the Penshurst train left from that platform.

The man stared. “Really, you are quite mistaken,” he drawled; “that train leaves from Platform 2. You had better hurry, you know; you haven’t much time.”

John waited for nothing more, but ran to tell the rest, and they all started for the other end of the station. Up the steep steps again ran Mrs. Pitt, with the four young people following. Along the bridge they flew till they reached Platform 2, and then they almost fell down the steps in their hurry, for the train was already there.

When they were fairly seated in a third-class carriage, John, still out of breath, exclaimed:—

“Whew! My! I never ran faster in my life, did you, Philip? How the girls kept up, I don’t know! You’re a first-class sprinter all right, Mrs. Pitt! We’d like you on our football team, at home! My, but I’m hot!”

He paused for breath, and then went on excitedly:

“There was a close call for you! We’d have lost it if I hadn’t spoken to that guard, just in fun! There we were calmly waiting, and all of a sudden, we took that wild dash across the bridge! It was great! I hope somebody caught a photograph of us! I’d like to see one! How stupid of the guard to make that mistake! They never seem to know very much, anyway. If I ever am a guard, I shall be different; I shall know things!”

They all had a good laugh over the adventure, and Mrs. Pitt assured John that when he was a guard, they would all promise to use his station.

“Don’t these trains seem different from ours, Betty?” the future guard asked of his sister. “It seems so queer to me why they want to take a perfectly good, long car, and chop it up from side to side, into little narrow rooms, like this! What’s the use of having so many doors?—one on each side of every ‘compartment’! And then, they put handles only on the outside, so you have to let down the window and lean away out to open it for yourself, if the guard doesn’t happen to do it for you! We Americans couldn’t waste so much time!”

Just then, Betty, who could contain herself no longer, burst out laughing.

“Why, what in the world’s the matter?” cried Barbara.

Betty could only point to a passing train. “It’s only the funny little freight cars!” she finally explained, rather ashamed that she had let her feelings escape in that way. “They look so silly to us! They seem about a third the size of the ones at home. Really, these remind me of a picture in my history-book, of the first train ever run in America!”

Mrs. Pitt smiled. “Yes, I can imagine just how strange they must seem to you, for I remember very well how I felt the first time I ever rode in one of your trains. To me, one of the most interesting things about visiting a foreign country, is to see the different modes of travel.”

“Oh, please understand that I think so, too!” urged Betty. “It was only that I couldn’t help laughing just at first, you see. I wouldn’t have your trains just like ours for anything, and I’m sure that John wouldn’t either.”